No. 2 Klan Group on Trial in KY Teen's Beating

DAWSON SPRINGS, Ky. (AP) - The 28-acre compound that thenation's second-largest Ku Klux Klan outfit calls home features ahigh gate with armed guards, a stage for the group's annualgatherings and an open field for burning crosses.

The Southern Poverty Law Center wants to take it all away.

On these tranquil grounds amid western Kentucky's low, rollinghills, the Imperial Klans of America incited members to severelybeat a Latino teen at a county fair, the civil rights groupcontends in a lawsuit. The center hopes its case will bankrupt thisKlan group, a tactic the center has used to decimate other racistorganizations.

Jury selection begins Wednesday in Meade County, about 40 milessouth of Louisville and 120 miles from the compound.

"We want to put a stop to this kind of violence," said RichardCohen, president of the center, which is suing on behalf of thevictim. "They issue thinly veiled calls to violence."

The Meade County Sheriff's Office has added patrols and somesecurity at the courthouse but is not expecting trouble, saidDeputy Sheriff Dan McCubbin.

The case stems from a 2006 attack on Jordan Gruver that left theteen with two cracked ribs, a broken left forearm, cuts andbruises.

The center claims Jarred Hensley of Cincinnati and AndrewWatkins of Louisville were recruiting on behalf of the Klan at theMeade County fair, about two hours east of their headquarters, andattacked Gruver because he is Latino.

Requests made through the center to interview the now18-year-old Gruver, whose family is from Panama, were declined.Calls made to a number for the family were not answered.

Watkins and Hensley served two years in prison for beatingGruver and were recently released. Neither responded to writtenrequests for interviews while in prison. A message left for Hensleywas not immediately returned Tuesday. A listed number for Watkinscould not be found.

A message left for Meade County Commonwealth Attorney KentonSmith was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Edwards, who is also a defendant, made no apologies for hisviews but denied the center's allegations.

"I'm going to show he's a liar," he said of SPLC co-founderMorris Dees. "This is all Morris Dees' imagination."

Edwards - whose arms and neck are covered in tattoos of crosses,Nazi symbols, references to the "Zionist Occupied Government" andan obscenity referring to the center - said if he had sent hisKlansmen recruiting, they would have been wearing black T-shirtsand camouflage pants, they would not have been drinking and theywould not have headed out late at night.

"If I felt a bit guilty, I would have said that," Edwardssaid. "I didn't have anything to do with it."

The Imperial Klans of America has at least 23 chapters in 17states, most of which are small, Cohen said.

"It's not a great big operation, best I can tell," said ShawnBean, a Hopkins County Sheriff's investigator. "I don't thinkpeople (in town) pay a lot of attention to them."

Still, the Montgomery, Ala.-based center, which tracks hategroups, deems the Imperial Klans the country's second-largest Klanorganization, after the Brotherhood of Klans, Knights of the KuKlux Klan in Marion, Ohio.

Edwards' son, Steve Edwards, runs a Central City, Ky., groupcalled the Supreme White Alliance, which has ties to two whitesupremacists charged in a bizarre plot to behead blacks across thecountry and assassinate Barack Obama while wearing white top hatsand tuxes.

The center has taken white supremacist groups to court before.It won a $6.3 million verdict from Aryan Nations in 2000, whichforced the group to sell its Idaho compound. The center also won a$7 million verdict from United Klans in 1987 following a lynchingin Mobile, Ala.

Whatever happens at this week's trial, Ron Edwards insists he'llkeep the Klan going, even if it means declaring bankruptcy, whichpotentially could keep the property and Klan logos shielded fromseizure and away from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"I've picked out some property nearby, just in case," Edwardssaid. "We'll keep our name and our shield. We're not going away."

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